In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, in the frame work of our discussions on prophethood, there is a vital issue, which if not understood, our belief in prophethood will be of no practical use. This last discussion on prophethood is a guarantee of the practical effects of prophethood in our lives. Now, what is this last issue, you may ask? Well, let’s start with what we all believe in and say loudly: I testify that Muhammad is the servant and the messenger of God”. We repeat this in our daily prayers, in our call to prayers and in Shahadatain (the two principal testimonies). Well, is such a testimony to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) accompanied with any commitments?
Let me cite an example to make the matter more clear. Two friends are talking about flowers and one of them says: I think that narcissus is much more sweet-smelling than rose-water, I really testify to it! And the other friend believes otherwise. Well, what is the importance of this statement? You happen to like narcissus better than other flowers, so what?! You see, whether you prefer this or that flower, it has no effect in your life and it does not bring about any commitments.
But we say ‘I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God’, in our prayers or when we hear the call to prayers from mosques throughout the country as indicators of the general state of our society, does this make us committed to anything or not? That is the question. And the answer to it is absolutely affirmative. Now, what sort of responsibility is the believer is committed to when he or she declares his faith in the messenger of God? I may briefly answer this question and say: the person testifying to this prophethood commits oneself to continue the work of our holy Prophet in the path of God; of course this is easier said than done because it is a great, heavy responsibility and, basically being a member of the Islamic umma, means carrying on the divine message of prophethood and struggling on its path.
Some ordinary people think that if we just believe in the holy Prophet and say that his prophethood lies in our hearts, we have fulfilled our religious obligation and have brought ourselves one step closer to Paradise. You must think about this seriously and find out if you also think so. Some people also think that mankind was being burnt in the flames of God’s wrath and then the holy Prophet appeared and people just said ‘we testify that Muhammad is God’s messenger’, and by uttering this sentence, they were all saved and were blessed by God’s Mercy. Now if they also perform their prayers and fast for some days or pay their obligatory alms of zakaat, then they will be more deserving to receive Mercy. And when they did perform these injunctions, they would still be pardoned because in their heart, they believed in the prophethood of our holy Prophet!
The result of this way of simple- minded thinking is that if you just declare that you are Muslim, not Jewish, Christian, materialist and the like, you’ll receive the good news of going to Paradise because you chose Islam as your religion and, as I said, if you also do some other things like praying and fasting, all the better!
Well, let me tell you that this sort of thinking is quite wrong. Surely we should have faith in our Prophet; but belief in his prophethood brings about certain commitments, and our firmness of faith is measured by the degrees of fulfilling those commitments or obligations. If your faith is only reflected in words or in your hearts but you do not carry out the obligations that the faith in prophethood requires, then you may be called a believer but not a truly faithful believer. What will God Almighty do in the case of such people? I do not know, but according to the criteria of this world’s struggles, I cannot call such a person a believer.
It is said that even this kind of superficial faith may protect your life and property because you happen to be in the general sphere of Islam. But here the issue is not the protection of lives and properties. We want to see whether a person is a true believer or not. I say that a person that neglects the commitments that faith in prophethood absolutely requires is not truly faithful and I will cite some Quranic verses in this respect in a few minutes and prove this claim through God’s words.
So, what is this commitment? To answer this question, you must first find out what the holy Prophet was doing during his blessed life-time? What was the firm foundation that the Prophet tried to set up in the Muslim community to remove all paganism, falsehood and oppression in the world? We ought to look around and see whether that solid foundation and the monotheistic society desired by the holy Prophet are complete or not. If we clearly look at the world around us and see that it is not so, then we ought to do our best for the complete realization of those prophetic goals. Let’s cite an example in this respect: you want to pick up a heavy stone, you try hard but you can’t make it move, so you should ask five or ten other persons to help you; or imagine you want to build a house but you are not able to do it alone, then you call on some workers and builders to do the job, but you could also help, say, by taking some bricks to the site; if you say that you can’t even do this, then surely you’re a liar!
So, as I said, a Muslim should be committed to his belief in prophethood, otherwise his testimony about the Prophet is false or just superficial; it would be like the testimony of the Hypocrites as mentioned in the Quran: “When Hypocrites come to you, they declare ‘we do bear witness that you are indeed God’s messenger’; yea, God does know you are His messenger, and God does witness that the Hypocrites are utter liars!” Yes, these double-crossing persons who were later called ‘the Hypocrites’ used to go to the holy Prophet and say that they believed in his prophethood, but God rejects this and says: I know he is My prophet but I also know that you are liars!
Thus, commitment to prophethood means commitment to set up a world order as Islam suggests. The holy Prophet was raised to change the people’s way of life as ordained by God Almighty. And so, if you look around and see that humanity’s way of life is not like what God has advised, if you notice that today different schools of thought are dragging mankind astray and if you regret that Islam today has remained inactive and ineffective and that it only lies in some believers’ hearts, then your immediate, absolute responsibility and religious duty is to do your best to change the world into the pattern and substance of what Islam stipulated as Muslims devoted to God’s Prophet and his holy mission.
Now, as noted in the papers handed to you, Islam formed a new front in the community against the array or ranks of the faithless people. If you study the Quranic verses, you’ll find out that religion, in its fundamental sense, stands for the creation of a new front. Let me explain this a little. After the prophethood of the holy Prophet was declared, the people in the backward, ignorant community of the time, who were all following a silent, slavery system, gradually changed into two opposing camps. Their society was travelling, say, on a slippery road. The holy Prophet calls out and says that this road will take you to perdition. Some people believe what the Prophet says and so they return, but some others do not heed his call and go on as they have traditionally done.
Therefore, as I said, positioning of forces is changed and a new camp led by the Prophet is formed. Remember that the Prophet was alone at the inception of his mission; he did his best to attract the people to the new message of God and people in group of tows, fours or dozens joined him gradually and it was later that the Prophet succeeded in arraying a strong-willed camp of the faithful against the hellish camp of the disbelievers; so now there were, as in the case of two warring armies, two camps: the Prophet’s companions and his bitter enemies.
What did the Prophet intend to do? He meant to take the people to eternal happiness and salvation, that is, to a paradise in this world and the paradise in the next. Those who didn’t join him will never enjoy that salvation. And there were some people who listened to the holy Prophet and noticed that what he said was the truth, but they also saw the strong opposing camps and feared them. So they chose safe places for themselves and their family and did not participate in any rightful action, though they were sure that the Prophet was on the truthful side. Will such persons be salvaged or go to God’s paradise? Of course, not. All those people who do not take a stand between truth and Falsehood could hardly be forgiven or blessed by God. Those who are not with the Prophet, are inevitably against him; in the case of Imam Ali (AS) also, all those who did not help him and took neutral positions ended up being against him. The Quran teaches us the same, and Imam Ali, in a statement, easy to understand, says: ‘The silent are the brother of the content (with the evil circumstances) and those who are not with us, are against us.’ this is obvious, because those who are silent and do nothing against an oppressive rule, are in fact helping it. In the battle between right and wrong, Islam does not recognize any middle or mediocre position.
There were some famous persons such as Abdullah-Bin-Mas’oud or Rabi’-Bin- Khuthaim who, before the famous battle of Seffeen, begged Imam Ali (AS) and said: We have our doubts about this battle between two Muslims armies, please dispatch us to some frontier-posts to battle pagans”! They thought that Ali’s administration was like some governments, as in the two World Wars that were fighting for power, for gaining more wealth and colonies! They didn’t understand that in a battle between Truth and Falsehood or between right and wrong, there is not any middle ground: if you are not with the truthful front, then and don’t fight for it, you are in practice helping the opposing front that is confronting the truthful front. When Imam Husain (AS), on the way to Karbala, asks a certain Muslim to help him, he says: O You, grand-son of the God’s Prophet, I am ready to give you my horse and my sword to help you, but I don’t accompany you! Most of our Islamic narrators have opined that this man was a wretched, unfortunate person, for if a Muslim does know his Prophet, his godly mission and his truthful tradition, then he can’t sit idly by, to take no risks for furthering the faithful cause and still saying that he is a follower of the holy Prophet. We are warned by the Quran about such attitudes: “O You believers! Wherefore do you profess that which you never practice? It is disgusting in the Sight of God when you say what you do not practice.”
Woe to me if I’m also saying what I don’t practice. Why should I, as a follower of the Prophet, say things that show I’m really a follower of Abu-Jahl, when I’m in fact a polytheist and why should I claim that I am a follower of Imam Ali (AS) when I do follow Muawia? What is the difference between Ali and Muawia? We could draw the lines of their differences in our own society; imagine a person among us who never tells lies, hates bribe-giving and bribe-taking, is never concerned with his own comfort and pleasure-seeking and is unshakable when carrying out God’s injunctions and the Islamic tenets and perhaps too serious and tough in fulfilling his responsibilities: his brother asks for more money from the public treasury and he slightly burns his brother’s hand with a hot tongs! Now imagine another person, exactly the opposite: He is ready to give you a lot of money, he helps you with your pleasure-seeking and in satisfying your carnal desires and appoints you to high positions of power; all this will be yours on one condition: don’t help Ali, and even if you don’t help me, say, some flattering words about me, it will suffice!
Well, truthfully speaking, which one of the two characters I described will you choose in our time and under present circumstances? Are you ready to help the one whose companionship involves a lot of hardships, struggles, obligations and responsibilities? Are you spiritually prepared to help this man in preference to the other who gives you money, position, comfort and individual pleasures? Now, if you opt for the former, God be with you and help you gain final happiness and salvation. But if you are attracted by those worldly pleasures, easy-going life and superficial honours, and if you travel to Syria to join Muawia and tell your wife and children: I’ll be waiting for you in Damascus and, in one word, you leave Ali (AS) alone, then you’ll have to face your God alone, as some apparently great figures of the time abandoned Ali’s camp and left him alone.
Let’s go back to Islamic history. Abdullah-Bin-Abbas, the cousin of Ali (AS) and the Prophet (PBUH), a famed Quranic exegete and an accepted character among both Sunni and Shi’ite branches of Islam, had exactly the same cowardly behaviour with Imam Ali. He was not a companion of the holy Prophet because he was only a child then, but because of numerous Narrations he quoted from the Prophet, he became very famous. I did some studies about him and found out that he was a companion of the second Khalif, he liked him very much and devotedly followed him. It’s incredible that many Islamic sects, even those who oppose one another, revere him! He was appointed the governor of Basra; he took all the Basra public treasures with him and travelled to Mecca to live in the safe, holy precincts of God’s House. Why did he do this? Perhaps he meant to spend all that money for alms and other charitable purpose!! No, he bought a big house and some slaves and some nice-looking slave-girls to live in comfort and satisfy his carnal wishes.
Let’s imagine that Abdullah-Bin-Abbas were alive today, what would he do? Surely he would repeat his narrations about Imam Ali and would tell us what a great believer Ali was and narrate stories about Ali’s courage, selflessness, virtues and his unrivaled services in the path of Islam. Would we then believe it that he was a follower of the Quran and the Imam? No, not at all, we would surely admonish him saying: if you were really a faithful Muslim, you should have proved this when being tested under difficult conditions; a hadeeth (narration) from the holy Prophet informs us: ‘In troubled, turbulent circumstances, the real nature of men shall be revealed’. If he were alive today, we would tell him: you were the closest person to Ali (AS), you knew him better than many, if you were a faithful person, you would have not done what you did, you wouldn’t run away with the money belonging to the public treasury. There is a letter by Imam Ali (AS) in Nahj-al-Balaagha addressed to Abdullah-Bin-Abbas; but the late Sayyed Razi, the collector of the book, writes ‘a letter by Ali to one of his governors. Razi lived at the time when the Bani-Abbas ruled the Islamic world and he probably was cautions not to name Abdullah-Bin-Abbas, but, according to most researchers, it is obvious that the letter is addressed to him; this has also been confirmed in some other Islamic sources.
Let me sum up: the belief in prophethood requires the commitment to follow the Prophet’s path, fulfilling one’s obligations and responsibilities as he wished, that’s all. Now let’s begin reading and translating some of the Quranic verses written down in the papers handed to you. They are verses 72-74 of Sura 8 (Al-Anfaal): “those who believed and fled their homes risking their property and lives to fight in Allah’s cause…”. This does not only concern the Prophet’s time, no, it is valid for all times; at the prophet’s time, many people migrated to strengthen the Islamic community because they sincerely believed in the Prophet’s message. There were, however, others who had embraced Islam but questioned themselves: ‘Why should I abandon my house, shop, my friends, my kith and kin and other valuable things to join the Prophet in Medina? As you see, you need to have a firm, unshakable faith to leave your dearest and nearest to help the divine cause. They probably said to themselves: Well, the Prophet wants us to perform daily prayers, we obey; he wants us to fast for 30 days, ok, I fast for 60 days, but why should I leave my home in Mecca?! Yet this migration was absolutely necessary, for the Islamic society was very newly-established and it had to be strengthened and defended against its enemies. So migration was an absolute condition of having a firm, truthful faith.
Next we read in the same verse: “…and those who gave them shelter and support are certainly each other’s friend and allies…”. As the people who had migrated did not have any place to live in and no means to earn their livelihood, those who gave them shelters and supported them are the faithful who fulfilled their responsibility; they are all united in a friendly, faithful front like hard bricks in a well-built wall.
And now let us carefully consider the rest of the verse: “…but to those who believed but did not flee their homes, you do not owe such support, guardianship and friendship, until they also migrate…”. Those who believed the holy Prophet but did not take up the responsibility to migrate are not yet in the category of the former two groups who helped and guarded one another; there can’t be close Islamic connection or coherence with them. Yet there is an exception: if they are attacked by enemies and asked for your support, you ought to go and help them because they are your co-believers.
What we learn from this Quranic verse is that helping Muslims anywhere in the world is an Islamic duty. The verse also tells us that we are obliged to defend Muslims under attack, even if they have not migrated. Of course in the world today, that kind of migration to the first, Islamic community is not an issue. The third point we learn is that we should not enter into battle with disbelievers with whom we have a treaty or pact: “…yet if they plead for help in faith, it is incumbent on you to help, except it be against the tribes with whom you have a treaty; Allah is Cognizant of all your deeds.”
The next verse teaches us another lesson: “ in fact the disbelievers are each other’s friends and allies; if you will not do the same, there will be much mischief and great corruption everywhere.” This tells us that all Muslims should unite because the ungodly front is united against you and you could easily see this; those who choose to remain in the middle and not helping, are in fact in the camp of the enemies of your religion. We are further warned that if we are not friends and allies, there will be great sedition and corruption in the world. Sedition means the absence of religion and corruption means the absence of God’s laws and injunctions in the society.
Now let me read verse 74 of Sura Al-Anfaal: “Those who embraced the Faith and left their homes to fight in Allah’s cause, and those who did give them shelter and support, are true believers…”. Such believers are true believers but those who have embraced Islam and do not do anything in the path of God, are really false believers.
Finally let me draw your attention to verse 81 of the Sura 3 (Aali-Imraan) which needs a brief explanation to be better understood it: “Behold! Allah took a covenant from His prophets…but in time, a messenger will come to you to sanction what you have got, do then believe in him and give him help…”. God says that We took a covenant from all Our prophets that after you will come another prophet who affirms what We have given you. So when after Moses comes another prophet, say, Jesus who sanctions all you taught your followers, they must follow him and support him. How is this support realized? The answer is in the fact of Moses advising his friends and followers to help the prophet after him who has the required divine signs and does sanction the prophetic teachings of his predecessor. Then God asks: “…now, will you affirm this and accept the burden I lay on you as binding?” all prophets of God accepted and affirmed this covenant with God Almighty. This means that all believers in Moses had to believe in and support Jesus Christ and so on until the very last prophet of God, our holy Prophet. But did the followers of those prophets carried out this divine covenant? No, the majority of them did not!
